To My Beloved: Heart Of Ohmallera

Posted on 239202.22 by Reza Kardgar in Editorial

The Federation News Service received the following letter from Nikael Kalre, leader of the Maquis Reborn, who asked that it be published on the anniversary of the attack on Ohmallera (stardate 238802.22). After much debate among our staff, the FNS has decided to publish the letter in its entirety.

Imzadi,

Four years have passed since you were taken from me. Four years since I last saw our children smile or heard their laughter mingling with yours. Although those years have passed, I remember you all as clearly as if I had just left you.

Annella stood beside you, clinging to your skirt with one hand while the other lifted to bid me goodbye. As you waved, Rennan perched in your arm, clapped his hands slowly together as he practised his new skill. I promised I wouldn’t be long. I promised I would return quickly. I promised I would be back in time for Nella’s birthday the following week.

It was a promise I was unable to keep.

Four years. That time should have been spent watching the children grow, learn, travel down the path that would lead them to their future selves. I wonder what they would have been like. Would Annella’s curls tame into the gentle waves like her mother, or remain wild like the spirit she possessed? Would Rennan still retain that quiet, wide eyed way he observed the world around him?

We should have been able to watch them grow, to guide them as they navigated through their lives. We should have grown old together, laugh, cry, fight, watch our children blossom, bear their own children.

We should have died together.

Instead, we are ever torn apart. For that I weep. I weep for the years lost, the children borne to us, for the love we have wiped away. There is a Terran saying you once told me when I asked you if you would be unhappy to leave your home to be with me. “Home is where the heart is.”

My heart was on Betazed.

My heart was in Ohmallera.

My heart was with you and our children.

Now my heart is broken.

No one should ever have to suffer such a fate. No one should ever have to see all they love destroyed because of the apathy of those whose duty it was to protect their citizens. I can not stand by and watch others suffer the same fate.

Aurora, my darling, to you I make my vow. Starfleet has lost its noble purpose and has turned its back on its people. The Federation Council, sworn to protect its citizens, has instead betrayed us all and left us in the hands of those who would see us wiped out. They, who are entrusted with the lives of the men and women like me who joined the service with a naive notion of duty and an honest desire to protect those most vulnerable, sent us to war to preserve the Federation. Yet now, after the sacrifice of millions of lives, they serve nothing more than their own selfish interests. They desecrate the graves of my lost brothers and sisters in arms just as they desecrate yours.

Things must change. Starfleet and the Federation must change. We can not continue to be beholden to an organisation that cares nothing about what happens to its people. Your deaths will not be senseless. They have given and continue to give me direction. A purpose. I wish to open the eyes of those who can not see, to show them that the power of the Federation has become corrupt.

We must confront our enemies, wherever they may hide. We must not falter or waver from our course. We must persevere, work for change, and remember those who were lost. We must liberate.

One day, the people will come together, to protect one another as brother and sister. All will stand together as one, a body that looks after each other without selfish justification. When that day comes, my job will be done. Until that day, Imzadi, we will fight.

Please understand, I don’t do this out of revenge, but out of the desire to keep others from suffering your fate – and having to suffer mine. On that harrowing day four years ago and every day since, I have never forgotten the agony and despair. I will always remember you. I will always love you. Someday, we will be together again.

Wait for me.

Nik

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About Reza Kardgar

Reza Kardgar is a journalist and editor for the Federation News Service. Over his career, he has covered a wide-range of stories including the Vaadwaur Occupation of Deep Space 17 in 2387, of which he was a survivor.